No, I was asking about your past experiences with Cobalt. The accusation was that they were the type of person who does these things and they did it repeatedly to you before.
Posts made by hobos
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RE: Ruiz
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RE: Ruiz
I mentioned being confused by the jump to conjecture earlier, but now I see why.
We're at a point where Cobalt is being accused -- if this alleged pattern of behavior is true, then there is a serious problem that players should know about if they are playing on a game run by this person. Banning people without a word because you're ERPing the accuser is obviously not a fair thing to do.
Do you have any proof? It is a sincerely ugly accusation to make and I would definitely feel personally attacked if you were making it at me and people believed you without evidence.
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RE: The Pack Discussion
Dark, personal, and potentially-triggering RP can be pretty great for a variety of reasons. That is, if everyone involved has enthusiastically consented to it. If not, then yeah... I can see this is definitely crossing boundaries.
I think more games could benefit from clearly-delineated xcard systems. Then you wouldn't have a situation like this where a manipulator could potentially later pretend they didn't consent, in order to get someone else in trouble and attempt to misplace blame. Everything could be in some xcard log and simple to know. Not that it's helpful for the situation right now, but that's what I'm taking away.
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RE: The Pack Discussion
Sorry to hear that, and sorry for my assumptions.
Ares doesn't log the OOC tells? For some reason the way you were talking about it made me assume it was Ares, which I hear logs everything.
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RE: The Pack Discussion
I don't see sexual assault in those logs either but I get how the pretense could be triggering to someone exposed to this exact sort of real life trauma. Macha, you said you have your own trauma regarding this kind of situation, but not every person reacts the same way psychologically about these things. Maybe skirting the boundaries of these questionable acts in roleplay is cathartic to you while it might be incredibly repulsive to others.
That said, it doesn't seem to me like a very damning thing, objectively, to add to your apparent list of weird offenses. However, just like @Hella wrote, people will seldom trot back their understanding of a situation even when confirmation of your perspective comes to light.
If there was something to be learned from this, I think it's probably not to roleplay questionably-icky things with a person whose enthusiastic consent you do not have in any sort of record. It does seem odd that Cobalt didn't talk to you about the situation at all, but the immediate jump to suspect that their motivations were jealous is also odd to me. Hopefully they will comment and clear this up.
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RE: ELI5 - Discord RP
It was all text from what I saw. But I did hear about another server (I didn't join that one at all, too busy at the time) that was run like a tabletop game, mostly over voice chat.
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RE: ELI5 - Discord RP
I've only been peripherally involved in one Discord RP server... someone invited me, but I didn't really feel up to the hurdle of participation at the time. I left after observing a while. They had a separate website and a lot of game rules for how to generate a character. They had a lot of channels, each channel being a separate room/area, and some channels were for specific events. They had bots for character generation and levelling and dice. It was super serious and legit. I'm pretty sure that there is a lot of variation in Discord RP servers but the one I saw seemed pretty hardcore. There were a lot of teenagers, it's true. It was hopeful thinking that the next generation is also into text-based roleplay, in their own way, and might come around to older games (the person who invited me had found a MUD to play in, too).
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RE: RIP Melkir
RIP
I remember Theodoric on Arx, he was so cool. Sorry for your loss of a good friend, Hella.
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RE: MUers in the news?
I guess the debate is about whether Nymeria is really just a stickler for canon or actually a racist. Looking at the history posted by Ghost and the other points made, I think the conclusion is obvious and she is a racist. Everyone's a little bit racist deep inside, so maybe that's forgiveable if she wanted to work on herself. But obviously she is just doubling down.
If anyone cares they could probably try to storm twitter about it. Neil Gaiman is going to be in real proximity to GRRM soon (Oct 27th) and I'm fairly sure another celebrated author's advice would go much further than the influence of a couple racist ghostwriters. So the time to make petitions and write letters and so on is probably now. I guess even though I started reading ASOIAF when I was 12 at my local library, I just don't care enough to go to any real effort to save people from turning a fantasy franchise into a cesspit, so that's going to have to be up to anyone who cares.
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RE: MUers in the news?
@Ghost said in MUers in the news?:
I kind of "set-and-forget" this post I made and came back to all of this. I wrote a long, dumb post trying to explain something.
But there's really no explaining this to someone with a history of "lol'ing" using the term negerboll and posts stuff like this:
This article pretty much spells out the futility in trying to convince someone to act appropriately.
Don't racelock your games, people. It's uncouth.
Ugh after reading more about this now I feel disgusted that I came to their defense.
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RE: MUers in the news?
It's one thing if a black person's backstory is that they were adopted into a white family, or a white person was adopted into a black family, or if there is a black family or a white family or a mixed family. That's a perfectly nice way to establish diversity of skin tones.
What I was talking about regarding "play whatever you want, it doesn't matter" was if the game's policy is literally to play whatever you want in some weird shallow mockery of diversity, and gives zero respect to all the real weight that comes with differences between people. It might be some people's jam, but I think it's disrespectful and weird. It's like... stealing someone's appearance for pure aesthetics, with none of the burden of that appearance, and not even trying to respect its roots.
Anyway, I have the sense that too many of my own feelings are invested here, so I'm not going to engage past this point.
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RE: MUers in the news?
To be honest, I kind of like the approach of "Well, the history of this country is white, and you have to think about how a black character would have gotten here if you want to play one here." more than I like the approach of "Yeah play whatever characters you want! Black or white! A black person applying into a family of all white people? All great! Skin color doesn't matter in genetics at all!"
Why? One is just the thematic recognition of race as a thing that exists and is limited by genetics but somewhat excluded due to the limited geography of the game, and the other is color blindness.
We're past the time that colorblindness is considered socially forward, aren't we?
Diversity is powerful because everyone is different, people with different colored skin might come from different places, have different experiences, and have different cultures that lend them different strengths and weaknesses. This is what makes the vast range of humanity to be as beautiful as it is. Speaking as a POC I am always more irritated by seeing race as a factor completely ignored in some dumb nonsensical way than I am to seeing people be sticklers about what race is supposed to inhabit what geographic location in some fantasy world. The absolute worst thing though is villifying a race from a location (ex: Southrons in LOTR).
I did play in a game once where the staff was very dramatic about how you weren't allowed to have red hair or blue eyes (or anything but brown hair and brown eyes) if you were applying as a certain race, and the constant harping about all this did annoy a lot of people. Nobody called it racist, but that's because the power dynamic doesn't exist.
Nymeria should realize that if she doesn't expand the geographical borders of her game world, then people are totally within reason to call her racist for thematically excluding a color of skin that is oppressed in the world. At the very least, Nymeria should realize that she is creating a haven for actual racists to not have to encounter black characters in, or to always be in a position of power over black characters.
Authors and game runners in general should wake up as society wakes up to injustices, and allow developments to occur in their fantasy worlds that makes things less racist. It'd be actually great if something could happen like an embassy of black people come to King's Landing, get trashed for their skin color, and then you make a whole plot conflict over it where the racist bad guys lose in humiliating ways and then a great trade empire is established with people of many races and cultures. That way you acnowledge disparity, let people play out righteous fights against injustice, validate what's right and fair, and now have a world that isn't racist at all while still recognizing diversity in the best ways.
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RE: The All-New Down With OPP Thread
@Ganymede said in The All-New Down With OPP Thread:
I hear what you are saying, but I am saying that this kind of conflict is boring. Not to mention prevalent in our lives and distasteful in our pretendy-fun times.
Especially when there is so many other kinds of conflict to engage in.
I totally get how the existence of real-life bigotry in games can be boring and/or distasteful to people. But I still think it's useful. I'm straight, but I once played a man who found himself in love with another man. It was in a small town with conservative values. It was a pretty heartbreaking story and if it wasn't for immersively playing that out, I wouldn't have the same levels of empathy that I do now for people who are in that exact situation IRL. If a man plays a female character and notices how grossly people act towards women, that's personal growth through roleplay. If someone plays a dark-skinned refugee in a world that ostracizes dark-skinned refugees, that player is likely better suited to have empathy for dark-skinned refugees in the real world. It's a way to expand our paradigms, and roleplay can be a very valuable tool in this sense.
That said, there should definitely be content warnings on games that allow this sort of exploration, and it needs to be managed carefully so it doesn't just become a gratituitous outlet for real bigotry. I think it's worth it. But at the same time, I completely understand how someone who must deal tediously in real life with a specific sort of bigotry would not want to have to face that exact same sort of bigotry in a game. It being a game means that you neither need to play a version of yourself that will need to confront that bigotry -- or play that specific game (that has such content warnings) at all.
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RE: The All-New Down With OPP Thread
I do think that racism, sexism, and other levels of -isms, phobias, and general bigotry can be valuable to play about. Stories thrive on conflict, and flaws can drive character development, and all that writing and exploring tends to be why we play these games.
The problem is when these sorts of flaws are not actually accepted or portrayed as flaws by the player of the flawed character, and there is no path towards redemption, just a lot of giggling bigotry under the guise of intellectual exposition and/or pretendy funtimes.
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RE: The All-New Down With OPP Thread
The log with the pushing-lingerie-buying on someone was pretty creepy for sure, but I guess that creepiness was OOCly marked as acceptable by the person who was creeped on, so I'm more looking at the logs with Betsy. The one that I read was like... Betsy said Warren could live with her if he wanted for a while, and then Warren concocted this whole drama about how it'd be so scandalous and paparazzi would besiege them and of course they'd have a great time locked in together anyway (hyuck hyuck). And then he tried to sexily convey his body heat to Betsy's cheek through the palm of his hand. And Betsy was kind of like "no that's okay anyway you want to spar sometime?" And then misinterpreted Warren's unwillingness to spar as confusion that she, a purdy delicate lady, would be violence-inclined. And then Warren got quickly turned off by what a tough girl Betsy was acting like, which honestly seemed like a big part of the purpose to me, as an outside reader... and Warren was like "okay bye" and Betsy was like "bye" and fin.
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RE: The All-New Down With OPP Thread
I think the post was a good post even after verifying that Lithium is not DWOPP. Some of those behaviors were really creepy and gross and I can't understand how anyone could've put up with them for so long. Please just don't hit on female characters like that and especially do not get antagonistic with them after they make it clear they're not interested in you that way.
Also, maybe people who were "in the know" knew who Lithium was, but without naming names, people who are out of the loop had no idea. Like I had no clue at all; I don't even play that game. But now I know, and I see zero contrition from Lithium, just defensiveness and ambiguation, as if the way they treated female characters was perfectly acceptable. At least Runescryer apologized for his mistakes and plans to do better in the future.
I was thinking about this some more, about how to play a womanizer-type without actually making women uncomfortable. I think a great way to do it would be to show some damn self-awareness about how disgusting your character is. Emote winking sleazily, or make comedically stupid approaches that immediately stop. Have your character develop real respect and treat others as full people once their idiocy is rebuffed or ignored.
It's difficult to be sure... because I've never really played womanizers. There was one time I played a guy who went through a phase where the love of his life died and then he was miserable and sleeping with women randomly whenever he got super drunk. But that was just a phase, and it was very obvious -- his pickup lines were appalling, and I'd emote about the smell of alcohol and all that. And I guess he was presented as enough of a rounded character that those women still felt comfortable around him despite that. No idea.
But I still think the behavior that prompted this thread was/is problematic, and needs to be addressed and considered, and that Runescryer shouldn't be crucified for making it. I already waxed judgmental about what I think Runescryer did wrong (jumping down someone's throat OOCly for IC things), and it was taken really maturely, so that's good.
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RE: The All-New Down With OPP Thread
I saw a log where it looked like Warren was trying to hit on Betsy and Betsy was kind of rebuffing him. If I was roleplaying a female character I would hate playing with Warren. The style of approach is sleazy and gross and exactly why I hate playing female characters. I am actually viscerally repulsed. Also, lots of MUSHy metaposing from everyone, not enjoyable to read. In the background, I guess Betsy and Tony Stark are developing a friendship and Warren gets jealous (and starts ICly engaging conflict with Tony Stark, saying "oh he's a weapons manufacturer and weapons do get used against us, (so Betsy's friendship with him makes her sort of a traitor (and also I'm so jelly she likes him and not me))") and then Tony Stark's player gets wind of this and decides that an OOC confrontation under the guise of "do you really want to do this?" as an OOC threat to stop the IC conflict OOCly is a good idea.
As your resident mostly-MUD player who was banned for code abuse on a MUSH, I feel like I have to say that I perceive Runescryer's approach as almost just as gross as Lithium's roleplay towards women. Take it with salt, I guess.
What I've learned from this:
- Sometimes it's perfectly fine for game runners to disgustedly ban everyone involved in some stupid drama and just say it's for their mental health and the health of their game. I liked ZombieGenesis' post here. It actually made me want to try out the game, but I won't because I'm probably unwelcome and also point #2.
- I really hate the constant OOC meta of MUSH-style roleplay. It's not just a learning curve issue I have. I'm just genuinely uncomfortable about this sort of attitude and I don't think I will ever learn how to do it, let alone how to love it.
Lithium, my unsolicited advice to you is that you should do this mental exercise: whenever you roleplay with another PC, gender-switch them in your head. You really seem to be disgustingly flirting with women in a way they neither appreciate nor reciprocate. And you also do this transparently pathetic thing of competing with men. It'd probably help you to roleplay with others as people first, and not consider their gender so much. Make sure to choose an appropriate sort of character to roleplay; one who doesn't care so much about gender.
Runescryer, my unsolicited advice to you is to not argue OOCly about IC stuff. React to it ICly instead, if and when your character ever hears about it IC. That's way more interesting. I guess MUSH players really like the collaborate approach of asking someone out-of-character "do you really want the story to go this way?" and I guess, fine. Just not my preference. The surprise and excitement of getting in-character consquences for some offhand comment is way too cool. But whatever. (I heard you were requested by ZG to contact Lithium OOCly, so, I'm editing my post.) If you were really going to do the OOC questioning, and do it honestly, then you should write a short concise summary on whatever the event is, and simply ask if the other player wants to retcon it. If they don't, then say thanks and politely stop talking to them OOC.
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RE: Another Played By Creator
I don't usually ask AIs for photorealism because it does look less uncanny if it's a cartoon, but... I asked DALL-E for a "photo of silver-haired man with blue eyes and vampire fangs" just to check how it's doing, and got these.
They are still fairly uncanny but the technology's getting better for sure.
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RE: Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff
"Too soon"? I can understand that for someone who is replacing another human in their life, because maybe the new relationship will have potential for abuse that you don't see right away because you're too blinded by grief and the rebound factor.
But with a dog? A dog is not going to abuse you. What is with those people and their weird trains of thought? I would question their judgment with basically everything if they're incapable of seeing how their judgment is not only irrelevent and cruel, but also illogical.
If you need an animal to take care of, for the sake of your mental health, that is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. It only shows you are a kind and caring person. Whatever you decide, you shouldn't listen to those people with their weird judgments.
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RE: Another Played By Creator
I feel the same way about it, and that is an awesome generator! Thanks for sharing it.
Here's the last character I played on a MUD.